Chris Bennett: SFI failing to deliver
© Johnny Houston If I had to choose a word to sum up the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), I would have to say “underwhelming”.
The payment rates are underwhelming, the required actions are underwhelming and, as a result, the environmental outcomes will also be underwhelming.
You’d be forgiven for assuming that as a business we wouldn’t be interested in entering our farm into the scheme on the back of that opinion.
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On the contrary, this week we were accepted into the introductory level of the Arable and Horticultural Soils Standard.
Of the actions required, the only one we are not currently doing is sufficient organic matter tests.
Considering we have to change very little in how we farm to qualify for the payments, it was an easy decision. Credit where credit is due, the process of applying was very straightforward.
It was revealed in October that only 1,980 farmers had applied for the SFI out of an eligible 83,000. Without question, an underwhelming uptake.
It is safe to assume that most of the farmers who applied are in a similar situation to ourselves and found that nothing really had to change to receive the payments.
While this is good for the farmers themselves, it suggests that very few of the environmental outcomes hoped for by the government will be met.
If nobody has to change what they do to receive the payment, water quality, air quality and soil quality will all remain unchanged.
The intermediate level of the scheme has the potential to address these problems, at least to some degree by incentivising the planting of cover crops, but the payments are so low they barely pay for the seed.
There is certainly not enough incentive to change a cropping rotation to more spring crops.
On top of that, if the establishment or yield of the following crop suffers, the potential financial losses are far higher than any payment gained from the scheme.
In an era of spending cuts, if not enough farmers sign up, funding could easily be reallocated away from agriculture.
If the majority of farmers do sign up, payment rates will be judged sufficient and environmental outcomes will be limited.